rars-digest 19950611

Robot Auto Racing Simulation (RARS) Mailing List Digest 19950611 The rars-digest is a compilation of choice cuts from the RARS mailing list. It's published once a week to comp.ai.games, rec.autos.simulators, and to individual subscribers. Send mail to [email hidden] with a subject of 'subscribe rars-digest' to subscribe, or 'unsubscribe rars-digest' to unsubscribe. Contents RARS286 Unix version on ftp site The two surprise tracks for next Sunday's race. When will there be prizes again? Re: RULES (reply by m) web page is up Re: A couple of questions (reply by m) AIX and Linux RARS 0.6 beta collisions To the Porters (UNIX, Mac, Amiga, Windows......) Joystick driver (for the PC, Borland) available (temporarily on my WWW page) Re: Help with UNIX compile (fwd) New UNIX version with Randomizer fixed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date sent: Sun, 4 Jun 1995 15:48:26 AEST-1000 From: Tom Paton <[email hidden]> Subject: RARS286 To: [email hidden] Organization: Halls of Residence, Monash U. Priority: normal If anyone is interested I have uploaded a version of RARS v0.61 that will run on an XT or AT. The simulation is still very slow (on a 286 with a coprocessor), but it runs! So if there is anyone out there who hasn't been able to run RARS on an older PC, RARS286 should work. There are also a few modifications which might interest users of more powerful pc's too. (ie it runs faster!) see the accompanying .txt file for a description of what has been done. The two files are: RARS286a.zip RARS286a.txt The .zip file contains all the files necessary to compile a working version of RARS for any DOS computer. Any comments, suggestions, problems, feel free to email me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date sent: Sun, 04 Jun 1995 11:49:29 -0500 To: [email hidden] From: [email hidden] (Randy Saint) Subject: Unix version on ftp site I've just uploaded a UNIX version of RARS based on version 0.61 I used the mods that Lars made to the 0.50 version for X windows, then upgraded to 0.61. Try it out. And if you have any problems, contact either Lars or me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Mitchell E. Timin" <[email hidden]> Subject: The two surprise tracks for next Sunday's race. To: [email hidden] (Rars- List) Date sent: Sun, 4 Jun 1995 09:56:33 -0400 (EDT) Hello Rartians, In response to a suggestion by Randy Saint, I will put the .trk files for next Sunday's two tracks on the ftp site, and also e-mail them to anyone who asks, immediately after the 1:00 PM deadline. They will be in the pub/ijs/uploads directory of course. We will also be on the IRC #RARS channel at 5 PM when we run the races. First race starts at 5:10 PM. All times are EDT. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Mitchell E. Timin" <[email hidden]> Subject: When will there be prizes again? To: [email hidden] (Rars- List) Date sent: Sun, 4 Jun 1995 01:10:44 -0400 (EDT) Hello All, I know that some of you have wondered if there would be more races with prizes, like we had on April 30. Well the answer is yes, but I can't say exactly when. I have decided to wait until we have lots of competitors before I actively seek a sponsor. As soon as we have sixteen competitors in either the novice or expert class, and at least ten in the other class, then I will go and find a sponsor who will donate prizes on a regular basis, several times per year. I anticipate more value in prizes than we had on April 30, and going down to fifth or sixth place. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Mitchell E. Timin" <[email hidden]> Subject: Re: RULES (reply by m) To: [email hidden] (Clifford Hammerschmidt) Date sent: Sun, 4 Jun 1995 00:40:01 -0400 (EDT) Copies to: [email hidden] (Rars- List) > In the rules is says it is OK if the robot reads a data file, what > about writing to a data file? (for learning robots who havn't seen > the track yet) Good Question, Clifford. Theoretically, it is not necessary, because your data area is intact after practice and is not re-initialized for each race. I can't see any harm in your writing to a data file at the end of practice, and at the begining, but not during. So if you want to write to a file at the end of practice, and then read it at the beginning of the race, it will be OK, as long as all other requirements are complied with. However, If someone points out a good reason why I should not allow this, I will reserve the right to change my mind. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date sent: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 20:47:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Samaha <[email hidden]> To: [email hidden] Subject: web page is up Okay, The WEB page is up! Check it out and Email me if there are any problems or suggestions.... Cya! oops The html is: http://www.cftnet.com/members/mindwarp/rars.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Mitchell E. Timin" <[email hidden]> Subject: Re: A couple of questions (reply by m) To: [email hidden] Date sent: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 14:09:54 -0400 (EDT) Copies to: [email hidden] (Rars- List) Grant Reeve wrote: > I have a couple of questions about sundays race tracks: > What is the maximum number of track segments of the 2 tracks? I There will be more than 15 segments and less than 35 segments on each track. > Are there lots of left-right (or right-left) turns? :) There are a few. > Also, just as a side question: Am I allowed to allocate some extra memory? Yes, if you make sure it doesn't get allocated for each race in a sequence of races. One way is to allocate it when your robot's name is copied; that only happens once. An easier way is just to declare a static array in your robot file. You have to stay within the 25 K limit for all code and data, of course. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date sent: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 11:46:42 +0200 (DFT) From: "Christoph G Prinz" <[email hidden]> To: [email hidden] Subject: AIX and Linux RARS 0.6 beta For those who are interested in UNIX versions of rars. I have ported the rars version 0.6 beta to AIX and Linux. If my ports can help to solve the problems that seem to exist with the 0.61 UNIX ports please mail me offline and I can send you the source. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Mitchell E. Timin" <[email hidden]> Subject: collisions To: [email hidden] (Rars- List) Date sent: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 09:50:22 -0400 (EDT) Hello All, Well, I have finally gotten around to reviewing the collision code in move_car(), and I am not satisfied, so there will be some fixes. The first problem, that I have fixed in my current version here (0.62?), is that a car can "run over" another car. When a car runs into a car ahead of it it loses 20% of its speed. Usually that prevents it from passing. But, if the car ahead is going much slower, then the remaing 80% can be enough to get ahead of the other car. In effect, the "crasher" trades damage for an easy pass. This is not good, and is not hard to fix; I will release a source fragment shortly that fixes it. The second problem is both well known and harder to fix. The cars often collide visually without move_car() considering it a collision. I will work on that today. If I can get the changes done quickly, we will use them in the oval track races coming up in two weeks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Mitchell E. Timin" <[email hidden]> Subject: To the Porters (UNIX, Mac, Amiga, Windows......) To: [email hidden] (Rars- List) Date sent: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 22:47:01 -0400 (EDT) Hello Rartians, Andrew Samaha, our WWW coordinator, is going to put in some links to information about the various ports of RARS. Could you guys send him the information he needs? Mainly he needs one or more contact people for each version, plus the name of the files that should be downloaded. Any additional things that you want to do is fine. For example, one of you UNIX guys might want to maintain a web page about the UNIX RARS port, and then Andrew could just link to it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date sent: Wed, 7 Jun 95 18:20:18 +0200 From: [email hidden] (Kim Laurio) To: [email hidden] Subject: Joystick driver (for the PC, Borland) available (temporarily on my WWW page) Copies to: [email hidden] Hello all! I've done a joystick driver that'll enable you to participate in a RARS race. (Only for the PC, DOS, Borland, analog joystick owners). I'll put it on the ftp site after I've added some comments to it and put the whole thing into a nice .zip and .txt that can be downloaded. Unfortunately I'm sitting at a UNIX WS when I type this, so I'll have to go home and have the work done. This means the code won't be on the ftp site until saturday (the earliest), because I'll make a little trip to Denmark tomorrow. BUT, there is a solution if you really want to try it out NOW ,(instead of optimizing your driver for the race on sunday, as you should), and also if you don't really care about comments and a nice package. You can get the whole thing from my WWW page! It is only three files (2 .zip's and one .txt) that sums to about 6900 bytes. My WWW-page: http://www.ida.his.se/ida/~dv3kimla/Welcome.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date sent: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 17:45:28 -0700 (PDT) From: James Dooley <[email hidden]> To: James LaPlaine <[email hidden]> Copies to: [email hidden] Subject: Re: Help with UNIX compile (fwd) I've successfully compiled it on 4.1.2 with G++ 2.6.3. You can pick up the executable at: ftp://dbp.caltech.edu/pub/rars I have Linux, Alpha (OSF), AIX, and Sun versions available there. If there's a need for these, I can upload them the the ftp site, as my computer will be going home with me for the summer next week. The undefined symbol is: (from c++filt) operator<<(ostream &, smanip<unsigned long> const &) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date sent: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 16:46:20 -0500 To: [email hidden] From: [email hidden] (Randy Saint) Subject: New UNIX version with Randomizer fixed. I've uploaded a new release of the UNIX version with the randomizer fixed. It's rars061.2.1.unix.tar.Z at the ftp site. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The rars-digest is compiled and published by (Dave `Gizmo' Gymer) [email hidden] http://www.mal.com/~dgymer -- Dave "Gizmo" Gymer Telephone +44 (0)1268 534228 -- General DataComm Advanced Research Centre Ltd, Basildon, UK -- [email hidden] http://www.mal.com/~dgymer/ -- Team Shark-Porsche online racing LFRS 95-96 co-director